I have wanted to run a tournament like this for years, and I am hoping it will generate a lot of interest. It should make for some fascinating team-building strategies.

Concept:

This will be a 16 team, 5-season tournament, based on a franchise theme, with all 5 leagues running simultaneously. The leagues will be different caps: 60M, 70M, 80M, 90M, and 100M.

Upon signup, each owner will select an exclusive franchise – more details on this below. You will enter 5 separate teams from that franchise, one in each league. But here’s the catch, you may not use any player more than once across your five teams. So each franchise will effectively be using 125 different players from its history. If you pick the Yankees, you can use one of the Babe’s Yankee seasons exactly once in your five teams. Up to you where you put him, but you only get him once. Of course, whoever picks the Red Sox can also use one version of Ruth (drawn from the 1915-19 seasons) and theoretically the Braves franchise could also use Ruth once, the 1935 version.

So this tournament will be a test not just of historical franchise quality, but of depth. It will reward owners who can do their research and manage effectively at five different caps. You’ll need to put together 5 different starting rotations, one for each league, using completely different players each time. We should see some very interesting strategies here. If you’re using the Braves, do you burn Greg Maddux with his dominant 1994 or 1995 season at a higher cap, or use a lesser version of Maddux at 60M or 70M, where he might actually be more dominant? Choose wisely, because you only get to use him once. And of course the same thing goes for your position players.

The leagues will start shortly after the 2013 players are released by WIS (the new release usually happens within a couple of days of the end of the MLB regular season), to allow plenty of time for team-building, and 2013 players will be eligible for this tournament.

Other details:

DH: No
Park: You may use any park that your franchise used at any time in their history. You can use the same park for all 5 leagues, or 5 different parks, or any combination.
Trades: No
Waiver Wire: No
Injuries: On
AAA: No
Clones: No (duh)
Live: No
Realignment: Random. Each league will randomly realigned exactly once, letting the cards fall where they may.
League Format: 4/4/4/4, with no interleague play.

There will be no 200K exemptions. All 25 of your players on each roster must come from your franchise. Because there will be no AAA players, no trades, no waiver wire, and injuries will be on, please be sure to draft enough PA and IP to get through the season.

In addition to the standard WIS rewards for winning each individual season, I will be asking WIS to contribute some bonus prizes to this tournament (and will update this thread once this amount is determined), and I will also kick in all 5 theme league founder’s credits that I would otherwise receive as the commissioner of each league.

Overall standings will be calculated exactly as they are in schwarze’s WIS Championship:

·1 point for each game that your teams win (including regular season and playoffs)

·5 points for winning your division

·5 points for winning a post season series

So the World Series winner for each league will receive 23 bonus points on top of their regular season win total (5 bonus points for winning the division, 5 bonus points for winning the LCS, 5 bonus points for winning the World Series, plus 8 points for winning 8 postseason games).

The owner with the most overall points across the five leagues will collect 60% of the overall prize money. 2nd place owner will collect 25%. 3rd place owner will collect 15%.

These will be selected on a first-come, first-served basis, and will be exclusive. Once you select your franchise, please plan to stick with it. Changing your original selection will not be allowed. You do not have to choose your franchise when you sign up, but remember, franchises will be claimed on a first-come, first-served basis. I will pick last.

There are 20 choices available. When you sign up, you may pick one of the 16 “original” franchises, listed below, or you may create a “bundle” of expansion franchises. Bundles must be composed of exactly 3 teams, exactly 1 each from each of the 3 groups listed below, representing the 3 different eras of expansion. So, for example, you could choose the Mets, Brewers, and Rays. You cannot choose the Mets, Astros, and Rays, because the Mets and Astros each come from the same group. Bundled franchises are also exclusive. If someone picks the Mets, Brewers, and Rays, then no one else can have any of those 3 franchises.

Important note on franchises: "Franchise" in this theme refers to the entire history of a franchise as defined by www.baseball-reference.com. Many franchises moved cities or changed names - and even in some cases changed leagues - across their history. You can use any player from your franchise's history. Please do your homework to understand what team/seasons are included within each franchise. I will be diligently checking rosters, but on the slim chance that an error slips past me and you end up using an illegal player, that team will (a) be ineligible for the postseason in its league and (b) be counted as going 0-162 for the purposes of calculating the overall standings. In other words, the use of even a single ineligible player will basically eliminate any chances you have of winning the tournament.

The bible for franchise lineage is www.baseball-reference.com, and this thread has very detailed information. If you have any questions as to whether a player is eligible for your franchise, please ask.

16 original franchises – if you pick one of these, then all 125 of your players must come from this franchise’s history. For simplicity's sake I am listing these franchises by their current name, but you have the entire franchise history at your disposal.

Expansion Bundles – if you choose to go with a bundle, you must pick exactly 1 franchise from each of the 3 groups listed here. Again, as an example, you could select the Mets, Brewers, and Rays. You may not select the Mets, Astros, and Rays because the Mets and Astros each come from group 1. You may use any players from your 3 franchises, with no minimums or maximums required from each. But your 125 players still have to be 125 different players. So, if you choose to pair the Mariners with the Diamondbacks, you may still only use Randy Johnson once. (The "no clones" rule should hopefully make this clear, along with the spirit of the theme, but just so there's no confusion.)

welcome zoldab...and our first expansion bundle. Will be interesting to see how many owners opt for the bundle. I confess that a Mets/Rockies combo was one I was considering for my own pick...back to the drawing board :)